Après New York… there's Paris.

Eating at… Tentazioni

There’s nothing I love more than an intimate delicious Italian restaurant. So for our five-year wedding anniversary, I made reservations at Tentazioni. I had read about it in the Paris blog Lost In Cheeseland for “perfect home Italian cooking” and is apparently her go-to for for dinner when working late. So, I do what I always do and checked it out online. Once I saw how much TripAdvisor reviewers seemed to love it too and that the photo of the restaurant from outside looked cute, I was sold.

Well, it’s definitely tiny. But it’s a lot more casual than I thought it was going to be. (See photo of Rio at the restaurant above.) It was basically like being at a takeout Italian counter slash tiny restaurant… with bright lights on. Keeping that in mind, I wasn’t surprised to see that the owner/server/chef seemed to be a friendly family of mom, dad and son. As for the food, it was fine. Nothing mind-blowing. And to be honest, I can’t even say that it was really good. I really wish I could since the service was friendly. And no, I don’t think (nor want!) food to be fancy-schmancy for me to love it. The food was just fine.

However, throughout the night it did seem like many people kept coming in to see if there was a table available or were picking up food to go. And then there are those positive reviews online… So perhaps the dishes Rio and I got were just not the best?

Overall, it’s notexactly the place I would’ve chosen for our anniversary. I would’ve preferred a restaurant that was a bit nicer and for the food to be a bit better. But if you’re in the Montmartre area and want to grab some Italian food for lunch, by all means, hop on in. I think it’s a perfect lunch spot.